Gilroy police: San Jose cop, wife died in murder-suicide

Pictured are Lynn and Chris Shimek of Gilroy, from their MySpace photo album. Chris Shimek, a San Jose Police Department officer, allegedly strangled his wife to death before shooting himself to death. Courtesy MySpace

On Sunday evening, Chris Shimek told his teenage boys to go grab something to eat. He wanted to talk to their mother alone.

When they returned from an In-N-Out Burger, their father, a veteran San Jose police sergeant, was dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Their mother, Lynn, was dead, too, apparently strangled by her husband. Their parents were found by police officers in a master bedroom, sources close to the investigation said, with his hand in hers.

The grisly deaths that police are investigating as a murder-suicide at the couple's home in Gilroy came suddenly, as their marriage was reportedly ending. But some friends said it came after years of possessive behavior by Shimek toward his wife of 15 years.

"She wanted out," said Rhonda Harkins, a friend of Lynn Shimek's. "She told him she wanted a divorce about three weeks ago. He was not happy. She didn't deserve this. I never thought he would hurt her."

The apparent murder-suicide left the San Jose Police Department, already demoralized from layoffs and pay cuts, stunned and confused. The Shimeks' marriage may have been in bad shape, but there were no outward signs the veteran officer was capable of domestic violence, police say. He was a good, upbeat sergeant who lived with his family in a well-kept neighborhood filled with fellow officers.

"What makes this all the more difficult to understand is that he was so even-keeled. No one expected this," said police Chief Chris Moore. "Yet it happened. My main concern is that we don't see this happening again. These are very difficult times."

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Beginning early Monday morning, the department brought in counselors to speak with officers about the incident.

Lynn Shimek, her friend Tammy Drews and another friend had been at Rhonda Harkins' home having a few beers at 7 p.m. Sunday. About 8:15 p.m., Drews dropped Lynn Shimek back home at Rodeo Drive with a container of homemade turkey soup.

Within the hour, friends said they started getting texts from Chris Shimek, including one that roughly said: I went too far. I'm sorry. Please don't let my kids in the house.

One of the friends sent a text to Drews, telling her to get Lynn out the house. Drews said the friend, who she would not name, told her Chris Shimek sent a text that threatened his wife.

Drews said she raced back to the Shimeks' house and knocked on the door. It was 9:15 p.m. The front door opened a bit, stopped by the chain latch. The family's dogs, Scarlet and Sheba, were sitting at the bottom of the stairs. The TV was on, but she couldn't hear anything else inside. She called police.

Gilroy police Capt. Jim Gillio said officers went to the couple's home at 9:39 p.m. They found the two bodies and signs of a violent struggle, according to sources.

The Shimeks' two boys, ages 13 and 19, are staying with a paternal aunt, friends said.

Rich Robinson, a well-known political consultant and Chris Shimek's longtime friend, said Chris, 51, had grown up in the west side of San Jose as the youngest of three kids. He graduated from Prospect High School in 1978.

"This guy was an affable person with an infectious smile," Robinson said. "I never saw him angry."

But Robinson said that Shimek was suffering in recent weeks: "He was in a lot of pain based on his domestic situation. His house was going under. There were a lot of pressures."

Lynn Shimek, 43, told a close circle of friends that she was unhappy and she wanted to leave. Chris Shimek had been completely "obsessed with her and very possessive of her," Drews said.

He pulled her phone records, checked her text messages, trolled her Facebook page and her friends' Facebook pages, and, once, even put a GPS tracker under her car, according to several friends.

He never physically harmed her, friends said, and court records show no indication of domestic violence or restraining orders. Gilroy police reported that in 2007 they responded to a call in which the officer allegedly hit his stepson, "in a rage." No further police action was taken.

Lynn Shimek was a member of the South County Derby Girls, who are having a fundraiser in her memory, and she was an avid player of Bunco, a popular parlor dice game.

Friends also said she had once been a Creative Memories consultant, selling scrapbook materials before she moved onto selling BeautiControl products. She did so well at that, friends said, that she won a car in a company contest. Most recently, she had several gigs painting faces at San Jose Sharks games and also for cruise ships, where she was able to take her family.

"She just wanted to be free and live her life without feeling like she was always being watched," Drews said. "She was done. But he was not about to let her go."

Chris Shimek isn't the first San Jose police officer to be involved with deadly domestic violence. In 1997, Officer Tom Harris killed his wife, Judy, jamming her slashed and bruised body into the trunk of her car. And while he at first tricked everyone by leading a false search for her, three days later, he put a bullet in his head on a mountaintop above Los Gatos, a place he and his wife had visited as young lovers.